(03-24-2020, 05:19 PM)jagibelieve Wrote:

(03-24-2020, 04:24 PM)Senor Fantastico Wrote: Why is that? Lots of land for sale in Madera County, come on out.

I think I had said before that I have 35 acres here in north Florida (mostly wooded).  I don't see how buying the equipment and infrastructure necessary to farm that much land along with buying the seeds, fertilizers, etc. would make it profitable or even sustain an operation.

I have much respect for farmers because it's not just "planting seeds and watering".  I realize that there is much more involved.  You not only have to be a farmer, but you also have to be an "accountant" and a "marketing person".  You also need to know how your land is and what it might need.  In addition to that after buying high dollar equipment it has to be maintained and sometimes repaired.

The actual work itself and the maintenance/repair of the equipment is something that I would really enjoy.  The accounting, messing with taking product to market, etc. is something that I would not want to do.

Having said that, if I had more acreage and I was younger farming is something that I would really like to do.  I realize that you're not going to get rich doing it, but getting rich really doesn't matter to me.

Huh? How do you think we do it any differently?


As far as getting rich, in my area a weak field will return you about $2500/acre and a strong one about $6000/acre. Getting into the $6k/a area will net you something like a 21% annualized ROI on your investment. 

I get something like 8.7% which is why in the next year or two, I will redevelop the entire field into something more profitable/modern. Along with that will come with everything you listed except infrastructure.

But I usually use 20 year time frames to calculate out the returns, so you're right, I wouldn't tackle it at your age unless you planned on some family taking it over at some point.

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